GNOME backers push OS; IT still cool to desktop.
More than a dozen high-tech companies, including three top computer makers, rallied around the GNOME Linux desktop at LinuxWorld Expo here last week. While the support looks like it could pose a serious threat to Microsoft on the desktop, observers say, appearances can be deceiving.
Aside from the vendor hype, several people who decide what client operating systems run in their companies said application compatibility and training issues will prevent widespread deployment of GNU Object Modeling Environment Linux on the desktop, at least for now.
Compaq Computer, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems joined nine other companies to announce the formation of the GNOME Foundation.
Modeled after the Apache Foundation, which oversees the popular open-source Web server, the GNOME Foundation aims to provide a unified end-user interface for Linux and Unix.
To accomplish this, the foundation will oversee development of the GNOME interface as well as several open-source projects, such as Sun's OpenOffice.org productivity suite.
The group plans to wrap these elements into an alternative to Microsoft's Windows and Office applications.
Efforts to displace Microsoft on the desktop could find it tough going. Microsoft owned about 87 percent of the market for client operating systems last year and will account for at least that much, if not more, by 2004, according to International Data. While Linux will grow from its current 4 percent of the desktop market, it will not significantly change the balance of power, IDC forecasts.
Although Dell Computer was not part of the GNOME Foundation announcement, Chairman and CEO Michael Dell in a keynote at the show was bullish on Linux's prospects on the desktop.
"The open-source model makes far more sense than the proprietary business model," Dell said.
While the breakup of Microsoft, ordered by a federal judge and still under appeal, could give a Microsoft applications com pany the option of porting Office to Linux, IDC analyst Al Gillen believes that is unlikely because Microsoft would have little motivation to go after such a small market share.
In addition, a number of Linux users said the big computer companies picked the wrong Linux interface and said they will stick with the KDE Linux interface.
While a Linux desktop sounds good in theory, the idea faces the same obstacle Linux encountered when trying to gain a foothold in the server room -ÃÆ'Ã,¢Ã¢,Ã,¬" namely, status quo.
IT managers who have begun to run Linux servers in the back room said they will hold off on putting Linux in the front office until it looks like Windows.
"It's got to look like Microsoft; if it looks any different, it is scary to [end users]," said Gerry Maddock, IT support analyst at Future Metals.
Besides the cost of installing new software and training end users, some IT managers are wary of Linux because their mission-critical applications don't run on the operating system.
"I think [Linux on the desktop] is more of a sideshow right now," said an IT manager at a West Coast dealer services company who requested ano nymity.
